miR-TRAP: a benchtop chemical biology strategy to identify microRNA targets.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are single-stranded small RNAs consisting of approximately 21 nucleotides that regulate posttranscriptional gene expression in metazoans and plants. miRNAs are usually generated from noncoding regions of gene transcripts and function to suppress gene expression by translational repression or RNA degradation. In recent years, miRNAs have been shown to be regulators of numerous activities, including developmental processes, disease pathogenesis, and host–pathogen interactions.[1] Regulation of genes by miRNAs is a wide-spread phenomenon, and according to recent miRNA annotation and deep-sequencing data, there are >15 000 microRNA gene loci spanning >140 species and >17 000 distinct mature microRNA sequences.[2] These numbers will surely increase as high-throughput RNA sequencing technologies are applied to the discovery of new noncoding RNAs.